39 die in Newfoundland plane crash (10-3-46)

1

The Evening Star (October 3, 1946)

39 are found dead after plane falls in Newfoundland wilds

Worst air disaster occurs when airliner burns after takeoff

BULLETIN

STEPHENVILLE, Newfoundland (AP) – A search party which reached the wreckage of an American Overseas Airlines plane today messaged that there were no survivors among the 31 passengers and eight crewmen. In New York, the Coast Guard said helicopters were en route here, 10 miles from the crash, to take airline, Coast Guard and Army officials to the scene.

NEW YORK (AP) – An American Overseas Airlines plane with 39 persons aboard – three of them infants – plunged in flames into the wilderness of Western Newfoundland early today in what may be the greatest tragedy in the history of commercial aviation.

The Coast Guard reported that the possibility of survivors was very remote. Six of the passengers were children, 12 were women.

The four-engine DC-4, en route from New York to Berlin, crashed 10 minutes after it left Stephenville, Newfoundland, at 3:24 a.m., striking a hillside 10 miles from Harmon Field, where it refueled because the Gander airport was closed in with rain and fog. The ceiling at Harmon Field was 5,000 feet and visibility was 10 miles.

Three persons at scene

The Coast Guard, in a radio message sent at 9:48 a.m., said three persons, believed to be Newfoundland civilians, were at the scene and an Army searching party was at the foot of the hill into which the plane crashed.

The message said the searching party had one-half mile to go. The plane crashed 100 feet from the top of the hill, which is covered with rocks and scrub trees.

The message, sent from a Coast Guard plane at the scene, said the airliner appeared to have exploded after the crash and that only a tiny fragment of the ship was visible. There was a heavy rain at the time.

It was the second plane tragedy in the Newfoundland wilds in two weeks. On September 18, a Belgian Sabena airliner crashed near Gander, killing 27 of the 44 aboard.

Stephenville is on the west coast of Newfoundland, 921 air miles from New York and approximately 225 miles west of Gander.

No sign of life

An Air France Transport captain, who flew over the wreckage two hours after the crash, said on arrival at New York that the plane burned completely and there was no sign of life nearby.

The Air France captain, Jacques Charmoz, said he was at Gander, Newfoundland, 225 miles from the scene of the crash, when it occurred.

“I could see the glow of the explosion before I took off,” he said, “after the takeoff we circled the wreck. The plane hit the side of a hill quite high up and was still smoking.

“The light was poor and I could not identify any part of the plane. I saw a burnt spot on the hillside. It is a fairly wooded hill. I could see no path cut through the trees. The plane probably went straight into the hill.”

Capt. Charmoz said the 42 persons in his plane, 12 of them women, caught a glimpse of the wreckage.

Another description of the wreckage was given by Robert Albee of Forest Hills, New York, navigator on the French plane.

“Our plane circled the wreck at 1,500 feet,” Albee related. “I could not see the actual fire, but the whole plane was smoldering. The fire had died down quite a bit, but there still was a glow.”

The navigator said PBYs were landing four or five miles from the wreckage.

B-17 and helicopter sent

At Gander, officials of the airline said rescue planes which flew over the area reported the wreckage still was burning four hours after the crash.

The Coast Guard dispatched a B-17 and a helicopter from Argentia, Newfoundland.

There have been three 27-victim plane crashes in American commercial aviation. In addition to the Sabena crash, other such crashes involved an American Airline plane at San Diego, Califronia, March 3, 1946, and a nonscheduled Viking Airline plunge near Richmond, Virginia, last May 16.

One airline employee narrowly missed being aboard the plane when it crashed today. He was George MacCall of Newark, New Jersey, who was co-navigator and the ninth member of the crew. He left the ship at Stephenville.

The special assistant to the commanding general for search and rescue of the Atlantic Division of the Air Transport Command reported at Fort Totten, New York, that paratroopers from the 18th Air Transport Command at Presque Isle, Maine, and Goose Bay, Labrador, were speeding to Harmon Field, to take part in the search and necessary rescue work.

Nineteen of the passengers were booked for Frankfurt, Germany; nine from New York to Berlin and three from New York to Amsterdam, Holland.

Passenger list given

American Overseas Airlines announced the list of passengers of the DC-4.

The passengers are those who boarded the plane at La Guardia Field yesterday morning en route to Stephenville. The company explained that some passengers may have debarked on landing at the Newfoundland port.

The list follows:

  • Ethel Agnes Miessler, 47, Wichita, Kansas, housewife.
  • Harriet van Houten, 21, Yonkers, New York, housewife.
  • Janet van Houten, 6 months, Yonkers, New York.
  • Joseph Percy, 32, Woodmere, Long Island, New York, chemist.
  • John Simmons, 33, Richmond, Virginia, film operator.
  • Claire Zane, 43, Seattle, analyst.
  • Rudolph Zane, 42, Seattle, analyst.
  • William Lotze, 46, Burbank, California, analyst.
  • Ludwig Valik, 46, Morganville, New Jersey, chemist.
  • Benjamin Robert Alpert, 32, New York, executive.
  • Helen Kent Downing, 26, Thomson, Georgia.
  • Laurie Elizabeth Downing, 4 years old, Thomson, Georgia.
  • Barbara Kent Downing, 20 months, Thomson, Georgia.
  • Alva J. Marley, 46, Long Beach, California, executive.
  • Dorothy Gertrude McCormick, 26, Lebanon, Missouri, housewife.
  • Frank Schmidt, 11, Kenosha, Wisconsin.
  • Ruth Schmidt, 36, housewife, same address.
  • Rudolph Max Goepp, 30, Wilmington, Delaware, chemist.
  • Alda Boyd Stabler, 33, Bellwood, Pennsylvania, housewife.

The company said the above 19 passengers were booked from New York to Frankfurt, Germany.

Group going to Berlin

  • Virginia Edwards Bellanger, 21, housewife, Kingston, New Jersey.
  • Caroline Smith Crawford, 23, housewife, New York.
  • Margo C. Crawford, 3 months old, same address.
  • Edward Steuber, 37, the Bronx, New York, government employee.
  • Vera C. Himes, 47, 4429 38th Street North, Arlington, Virginia, housewife.
  • Lucy Jean Hawkins, 3 years old, formerly 410 Rosemary Lane, Falls Church, Virginia.
  • Elizabeth Eastman Hawkins, 34, housewife, formerly 410 Rosemary Lane, Falls Church, Virginia.
  • Mary Jane Merrill, 32, Farmington, Missouri, housewife.
  • Horace Eastburn Thompson, 32, Philadelphia, expediter.

The above nine passengers were booked from New York to Berlin.

  • John Snell, 55, St. Gabriel. California, superintendent.
  • Otto Stem, 56, New York City, executive.
  • Albert Butler Ritts, New Rochelle, New York, director.

The above three were booked from New York to Amsterdam, Holland.

Crew members listed

The company listed these crew members:

  • Capt. William Westerfield, pilot, Patchogue, New York.
  • Robert B. Lehr, co-pilot, Middle Village, New York.
  • John Tierney, navigation officer, Jamaica, New York.
  • Jerome Lewis, navigation officer, Long Beach, New York.
  • James M. Barry, flight commission officer, Kingston, Pennsylvania.
  • Mark Spelar, flight engineer, Jackson Heights, New York City.
  • Herbert Ewing, purser, Jackson Heights, New York City.
  • Margaret Burleigh, stewardess, Jackson Heights.

Ewing was born in Greensburg, Indiana; Spelar in Josephine, Pennsylvania; Barry in Chester, Pennsylvania, and the other crew members in New York City, the company said.

A number of the passengers aboard the transport were, wives enroute to join American government and military officials in Germany. Some had children.

Mrs. Richard van Houten, 21, and her six-month-old daughter Janet, were enroute to Germany to join Lt. van Houten, who had never seen his daughter. Lt. and Mrs. van Houten were married on June 7, 1945, while he was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia. He is a graduate of West Point.

Mrs. Alda B. Stabler of Bellwood, Pennsylvania, was enroute to Anspach, Germany, to join her husband, Army Lt. James Stabler. The couple met in Washington, where she was employed in a government office, and were married in March 1944 at Miami Beach, Florida.

Mrs. Helen Kent Downing of Thompson, Georgia, and her two children were en route to Germany to join her husband, George Downing, an official of the Coco-Cola Co. Mr. Downing, former manager of the company’s plant at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, went abroad six weeks ago.

Mrs. Ethel Agnes Miessler, 47, was en route to join her husband, Edwin G. Miessler, a regional accountant for the American Red Cross at Bad Wildingen, near Frankfurt. A daughter, Miss Arlene Meade, lives in Wichita, Kansas. Two sons are in service – Robert Meade, a fireman first class with the Navy in the Pacific, and Lt. George E. Meade with the Army, stationed at Tampa, Florida.

Mrs. Ruth Lansdowne Schmidt, 36, and her son, Frank Jr., 11, were en route to join their husband and father, Frank Schmidt, who is stationed in Germany with the Army. Mr. Schmidt, employed by the export division of Coca Cola Co., has been in Germany as an Army technical adviser for 18 months.

Mrs. Virginia E. Bellanger of Kingston, New Jersey, was on her way to join her husband Frederick in Berlin where he is on duty with the Army, her parents reported.

2

The Pittsburgh Press (October 3, 1946)

39 DIE IN ATLANTIC PLANE CRASH
Airliner rams hillside in Newfoundland

Worst commercial flying disaster

STEPHENVILLE, Newfoundland (UP) – A trans-Atlantic plane exploded against a hillside 12 miles east of here early today, killing all of the 39 persons aboard.

A ground rescue party which fought its way through a wilderness to the scene of the crash of the American Overseas Airlines’ DC-4 reported by radio to Harmon Field here that there were no survivors.

Hope had been abandoned hours before that any of those aboard the four-engined AOA flagship “Erie” had survived, as air observers reported the explosion and fire which followed the crash had left only small fragments of the plane.

Worst commercial tragedy

It was the worst tragedy in the history of commercial aviation. In each of two previous crashes 27 have died.

Most of those aboard the airliner were Americans, a number of them wives and children of Americans in Germany, who were flying to join their men.

The plane, en route from New York to Berlin, had landed to refuel here, because Gander, Newfoundland, 160 miles away, was weathered in.

Gander was the scene two weeks ago yesterday of the crash of a Sabena (Belgian) Airlines plane, in which 27 died.

Seen from field tower

Sgt. James Johnson, of the public relations section of the Air Transport Command here, said the Harmon Field tower crew and others watched the big plane make a normal takeoff, under a 5,000-foot ceiling, just before 3:30 a.m.

Then they watched in horror as it plunged into the rocky hillside, only 100 feet below the crest of a 1,900-foot elevation, 12 miles from the field.

The plane exploded, Sgt. Johnson said, and flames shot into the sky.

There was no way to tell, Sgt. Johnson said, why the plane failed to gain enough altitude to clear the hill. He said the weather was clear enough so that the pilot’s vision could not have been obscured.

Ground rescue parties set out at once to fight their way through the wooded terrain to the crashed plane.

One party reached it six hours after the crash. It was then that air observers from the party’s visual signals concluded that none of the 28 adult passengers, three babies, and eight crewmen had survived.

One of the passengers, according to the airline, was Alda B. Stabler, 29, of Bellwood, Blair County, Pennsylvania. She was en route to Anspach, Germany, to join her husband, Lt. James Stabler. Mrs. Stabler spent last weekend with her mother, Mrs. Gertrude Boyd, at Bellwood, which is near Altoona.

Jack Shelley, operations manager of American Overseas Airlines here, returning from a flight over the crash scene, said the plane was “burned beyond recognition.”

Off just in time

The crash toll might well have been 40 instead of 39. George McGall of Newark, New Jersey, and AOA crewman, was aboard the plane as a “dead-head” from New York to Stephenville, but left it here. His name at first was included in the list of dead.

A Coast Guard helicopter, which successfully rescued 18 survivors of the Sabena crash at Gander two weeks ago, was en route here, but it was doubted that it could land in the rugged area of the crash – a wilderness of rocks and scrubby trees.

The crash occurred at 3:34 a.m., less than 10 minutes after the plane had taken off from Harmon Field.

One of the victims of the crash was a six-month-old girl whose father never had seen her. Janet Van Hoten and her mother, Mrs. Harriet Van Hoten, 21, of Yonkers, New York, were en route to Frankfurt, Germany, to join Lt. Richard Van Hoten, who left for occupation duty six months before his child was born.

Also on the plane were Mrs. Helen Downing of Thompson, Georgia, and her two children, aged 2 and 4. They were on their way to join Mr. Downing, who is connected with the Coca-Cola Co. at Frankfurt, Germany,